When I write a piece for solo instrument or small size of chamber music, I always start by looking for the “nature” of each instrument. Reading of the treaties of instrumentation, reading scores, and exchanges with musicians involved in the construction of my work. What inspired me this time is the 24 Caprices of Paganini. As Brahms and Schumann, I am interested in his musical figures, body gestures of the musician and his instrument research. In relation to music perception, the proportions of envelopes or non-linear linear existed in various musical events have been particularly involved in the development of this study. As compositional technics, OpenMusic allowed me to generate certain proportions of envelope curve of three dimensions. This visualization has allowed me to create musical figures in the score and the electronics in real time and offline.

I had a chance to compose a series of electroacoustic music for stage at the spectacle of “ASURA” directed by Naomi Muku in Butoh dance company, Dairakudakan at Kochu-ten. The dancers continued to develop and refine the organization of all scenes under the direction of Muku and supervising of Akaji Maro until the first performance day, and I tried to rearrange the music following the stage production, and the result has become a very satisfactory execution. Every ten days of shows are complete crowd of spectators, and I am pleased to have developed my musical ideas for stage working with such a wonderful group of dancers. Thank you!

“Silence, instant, recurrence” for piano is a piece of ricercar composed under consideration of the eternal return. So, “The die is cast” or “God does not play dice”?

In Buddhist thought, it is said that the dead child before his parents will be brought to the riverbank “Sai”. “Sai” means the dice in Japanese. This child could enter the Buddha paradise after he fulfilled raising a round cairn. But the devil comes to destroy the tower each time the child will complete his work, and his efforts will not be rewarded forever. Also in Greek mythology, one is near episode. As Zeus’s eternal punishment, Sisyphus was forced to keep pushing a rock in the mountain Tartarus. When arriving to the summit, the rock falls to roll and this penance is repeated in eons.

On the other hand, in the thermodynamic point of view, a similar situation is not the same as another, even if it appears, because the universe continue to broadcast and diversify its state by the law of entropy. Furthermore, in chaos theory, a simple regularity seems sometimes very difficult to predict a result, and in quantum theory, the uncertainty principle states that the position and moment of the particles in the microscopic area cannot both be measured, exactly.

.. ” When I see phenomena of nature as like the crack of a glass or as like a flying ball, it begins my reflection on artistic dynamics. “. A composer, the fascination for the moment of nature, and energies of temporal processes. Keita Matsumiya – born in 1980 in Kyoto – lives and works in Paris, where he currently studies composition and conducting at the Conservatore de Paris. ” My inspiration often arises from communications with musicians with whom I work, and I would always do discussions as long as possible in order to enrich my understanding about each instrument’s nature and to observe the various gestures of musicians. This interest and the way of working would be also related with my concerns to the dynamism of the moment in nature. ”
Before Keita Matsumiya decided to become a composer, he had studied musicology and also dealt sound installations and projects with dancers and actors in Japan. In 2008 he went to Paris to study composition and electronic music mainly with Gerard Pesson and Frederic Durieux. He has obtained several scholarships and awards in France and Japan. His pieces are played at international festivals – both in Asia and in Europe. On the piece “La rose(é) des vents” for flute, oboe, percussion and string trio, Keita Matsumiya says:
.. We can only perceive limited amount of time. Our perceptions towards the moment in blinking eyes are so limited as to the lifetime of a planet. The drop running on the surface of a leaf, for example, our eyes cannot properly catch up with its transition, in such an instant. In other words, we can’t do well as a high speed camera. So I imagine, a drop starts to line on the veins from the point of falling: how it reflects its surroundings in flying splashes, how it traces the shape of veins in the wind, how it varies its transition by the volume of dew, by the power of falling on the leaf, and etc. After its falling out of routes, everything will go back in order, just remaining slight tremors of the leaf. In this piece, I’ve tried to picture such lives in an instant of single blink as a space of perceivable time, and I hope it would be created by musicians.”

Created by Bruno Martin at the Salle Fleuret Hall, in Conservatoire de Paris, Paris March 2011
Duration: 7 min.

” When I started this piece, I reflected on the different points of view from which may have addressed the composition for the harpsichord today.
First of all, I found it impossible to make sustained sound because of the nature of the instrument. This restriction sparked my interest in research around the ornamentation in the classics.
I am particularly interested in the work of Jean-Henry D’Anglebert, harpsichordist and composer of the early Baroque period, which has categorized many figurations and ornaments that he later included in his scores.
In a second time my interest has focused on temperament. The superposition of two temperaments, the Meantone and Kirnberger III, led me to develop a new scale microintervalles. Electroacoustic part consists mainly in the transcript of the characteristics of this instrument.
Patches and salaries in the software Max/MSP allows me to achieve agreements re-synthesized, that is to say, to set up an extended sound, imitating the rhythmic figure of the instrumental part. The accumulation intervals of the harpsichord is reinforced by the dynamics of electronics. In this piece the interaction is based on a combination of actions of the player with those of electronics. ”

In this piece, written around April 2011 for the final concert of the vocal class of Conservatoire de Paris, I’ve used one traditional poem “Iroha-uta”. This poem contains each character of the Japanese syllabary exactly once, but there are at least two way of pronunciation, mainly because of the sound change in the distance of history.

I used this sort of today’s and the past’s difference as the effects of sound modulation or iteration of phrases, and for developing this musicale intention, I’ve also reached to other ways of pronunciation, like as french way of “r” or the voiceless sound.

For the part of japanese traditional instrument Koto, which is the similar instrument of Gayageum, I’ve discussed with the instrumentalist and developed the way of playing as tapping the table of resonance or changing the position of strings, alongside the researchs and inspirations on the traditional gesture of playing.